Lineups and confusion plague Vancouver's Gluten Free Expo

Kevin Griffin, Vancouver Sun01.16.2013

Nadia Tortora prepares supper at her Surrey home on Wednesday. Tortora and her sister Daniela were one of hundreds who decided not to stand in line for up to three hours at the Gluten Free Expo last Sunday at the Vancouver Convention Centre. She’s still waiting for her refund.

It seems the organizers of last weekend’s Gluten Free Expo grossly underestimated the public’s interest in what they had to offer.

Instead of the 5,000 people they were expecting at the one-day event at the Vancouver Convention Centre, thousands more showed up, meaning waiting times of up to three hours to get in the door and plenty of frustrated customers.

Nadia Tortora travelled from Surrey and her sister Daniela came over from Victoria to attend the Gluten Free Expo, but they left when they saw how long the lineups were.

Tortora said when they arrived at the convention centre at about 11:30 a.m. Sunday the scene was “absolute chaos.”

Not only were there masses of people trying to get in, she was given conflicting information on what lineup she should be in to get her ticket, which she had won through a contest. She said when they got into the first ballroom, Tortora could see what was in front of them: more lines of people waiting to visit the booths and hear the speakers. She was told she faced waiting for up to two hours.

“There were three rooms where they were corralling people in line after line,” she said. “A massive amount of people in all these lines trying to make their way into the expo — I don’t know how people had the patience to wait. I wasn’t interested in waiting.”

The sisters are gluten intolerant and were looking to see what kind of new products were available for them to eat.

About one in six people are sensitive or intolerant of gluten, which is a composite of proteins in wheat and other grains such as rye and barley. It’s also used as an additive in prepared foods.

Tortora bought her sister’s ticket online at a cost of $9. Tickets at the door were $12.

To get her $9 ticket refunded, Tortora later went through an online dispute process with PayPal. She said Wednesday afternoon that she is still waiting for her money.

Margaret Dron, producer of the expo for GF Events Ltd, said turnout was far greater than she expected. She said the expo sold about 3,300 advance tickets online. Another 2,000 were expected to show up during the course of the day to buy tickets.

Altogether, she said she was expecting a total of about 5,000 — which would have been about double the attendance at the first Gluten Free Expo held last year at the Croatian Cultural Centre.

But she said she was caught by surprise when about 20,000 people showed up.

“It was an amazing turnout,” she said. “The demand is there in the market. Next year will be a multi-day event in a much larger venue. We cannot have what happened in Vancouver ever again. I just won’t allow it.”

Doors opened at 10 a.m. Ticket sales closed an hour later when it became clear that the number of people showing up was exceeding all expectations, she said.

She attributed the event’s popularity to more awareness about the benefits of a gluten-free diet.

“Gluten-free is becoming a very hot topic,” she said. “Testing for gluten intolerance and insensitivity is becoming more readily available. It’s a growth cycle.”

Several comments on the event’s Facebook page describe frustration with having to stand and wait for hours to get into the second annual event.

Allison Vander Hoek travelled in from Agassiz to the expo. Arriving at about 10 a.m., it took an hour to buy her ticket. Then she was told she faced another wait of two to three hours to get inside. She and her cousins decided not to wait and were able to get their tickets refunded on site.

She was at the Expo because her eight-year-old son was diagnosed with celiac disease, an auto-immune disorder triggered by exposure to gluten.

“I hope lots of people were able to get information they wanted,” she said. “I was upset that I didn’t. It was a let down. You drive all that way and you don’t get to go in and see what they have to offer.”

Dron said she understood that people didn’t want to wait 90 minutes to two hours to get in. She said volunteers were collecting pre-sold tickets at the door for refunds. She said anyone who didn’t hear the refund announcements at the site on the day of the event can contact her by email at info@glutenfreeexpo.com or via Facebook or Twitter

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